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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29660631">Somewhere we belong</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaurelinTengel/pseuds/LaurelinTengel'>LaurelinTengel</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The woosan fun [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>ATEEZ (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Boys In Love, Bullying, Dissociation, Flashbacks, Just sadses, M/M, Panic Attacks, Pre-Relationship, Sharing, Talking, Wooyoung is sweet, because author sad, no smut here</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 22:35:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,225</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29660631</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaurelinTengel/pseuds/LaurelinTengel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>San is triggered by an unexpected run in with someone he once knew and Wooyoung is everything San hoped he be.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Choi San/Jung Wooyoung</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The woosan fun [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2053419</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Somewhere we belong</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>As tags say it talks about bullying. There's only flash backs to it none graphic. But if the subject matter upsets you be warned. I was sad about all the world being a terrible place so I wrote a tiny prequel to Woosan relationship.<br/>Sending all the love!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>‘’’</p><p>San had his hands full with two bags of snacks balancing the heavier bag with drinks in it and trying to leave the 24h convenient store without spilling all his stuff on the floor. </p><p>As he got out he pumped into a group of three men and started to apologize right away. Only to looked up at an angry face that he recognized. The men pushed him aside and called him some name he didn’t really hear and the three of them walked inside without paying him any more attention. </p><p>He leaned onto the wall for a bit before getting out of there in a hurry. He couldn’t breath too well and the mask and hat combo wasn’t helping any. He ran tho, as fast as he could till he reached their apartment complex and then he stopped, breathing hard and leaning on his knees. He let the shopping bags drop to the ground and he didn’t care one bit. </p><p>He tried his very best to stop his thoughts but the invasive thoughts came in anyway. Loud and clear….Vivid images of a boy, skinny and plain looking being pushed around, falling down the stairs, standing alone while others stood together, dirty water being poured all over him, slapped around, called names - alone. The kid looked miserable and sad. And he knew very well that the kid was him. He just dissociated to the extent of his own memory's being played like a movie in his head of a third person who suffered. </p><p>And all that because the men he just bumped into wanted to feel powerful or whatever else of a lame reason. </p><p>He felt his phone vibrating and his roommate probably was wondering where he was. He tried and tried to get his shaking hands and unsteady breath under control but nothing seemed to work. </p><p>He should just ask Wooyoung to come down…it was probably Young-ah who was calling him. He took the phone out of his pocket with shaking hands and saw his best friends name and he felt something dripping from his eyes and onto his phone. They were tears. </p><p>He didn’t realize he was crying. He needed to get inside so he swiped the phone, now slightly wet multiple times before it took the call. </p><p>“Where are you for so long we all starving here? Are you taking your time to make me suffer? I want my snacks. You know how cranky I get when I lose and I been nothing but losing here….” then he paused in his rant as he only heard heavy breathing on the other side of the phone and San waited, not being able to say anything. </p><p>“Are you ok? Where are you? I come get you, tell me where you at?” Young-ah seemed to be moving around getting ready to come to him and that was all San really wanted right now so he just let out a word:</p><p>“Wooyoung…” and the other seemed much more worried and urgent in his tone now: “San, tell me where you are? I’m getting out now, are you at the shop still or? What happened? Please say something? Anything…” he seemed to be running as he spoke the words coming out weird. </p><p>“Downstairs..” is all that San managed to say and it seemed to be enough because the other just said: “I be there, just stay were you are….I be right there.” </p><p>And San just sat down on the pavement and waited holding the phone still connected listening to the noises of movements. Of clothes rustling and something scratching against the phone and Youngies breathing. </p><p>Until someone burst through the door and ran right toward him. And there he was, Wooyoung kneeling in front of him, trying to catch his eyes looking him over like to check for injuries. </p><p>He looked into the other boys eyes and Wooyoung seemed to be at a lose as to what to do next so San laid his head on Young’s shoulder. And the other whispered: “Is it ok if I hug you?” and San nodded his head and laid his arms around the other boy carefully and Wooyoung just pulled him in all air tight and held San like the world was trying to take him from Woo. </p><p>They just sat and held each other like that till they heard noises of people talking and they moved to see what was going on and saw a few other trainees coming towards them still a bit far so Wooyoung got up and pulled San up too. They both stood and San legs seemed still shaky so Woo took the bags off the pavement and told San to take a hold of his arm which he did. </p><p>They ignored the voices and made their way upstairs to get back to their apartment. And Wooyoung kept the tempo slow and looked at San every other moment to just check up on him it seemed. </p><p>San couldn’t really express how happy he was that Young-ah was his friend, that he had this extroverted fun, like-able person who looked at him and choose him. And who cared about him and took care of him a lot. But Wooyoung didn’t know everything about him and this seemed more obvious now then ever. </p><p>They got to their floor and Wooyoung opened their apartment door to pretty much drop the bags near the kitchen and yell out: “Get the stuff, it's in the kitchen. We gonna be in my room for a bit.” they always hid away together lately so it wasn’t unheard off but passing up on snacks was pretty suspicious. </p><p>Wooyoung got them to his room and closed the door behind himself and sat San down. Just looking at him again. With that worried look. Up and down. Like he could find a wound if he checked enough times. </p><p>“Can you breath better? Do you need anything?” he asked and looked San in the eyes. It felt like he was exposed somehow, like everything he was was on display and he didn’t like it. </p><p>“I…I’m ok.” it was a plain lie. Empty and hollow. It felt weird to lie so he tried again: “I…I guess, I don’t really know. I didn’t know this would happen, it hasn’t felt this horrible for a long while….I guess I forgot.” he shook his head like he was trying to shake a thought lose. </p><p>Young-ah just sat next to him and asked: “What happened just now? Did you have a panic attack? Has that happened before?” he laid his hand on San’s and held it, their legs where touching and if it was a normal day that would exited San to no end and he would be blushing slightly from the high of being so close to Young-ah and being able to touch him so casually but that seemed like a trivial thing right now. </p><p>“Well…I have had a few moments like this before…I think…I saw someone….Someone I once knew when I got out of the shop…I ran right into them and I didn’t expect that at all. My homes so far away and this place been like a new world where I don’t have to face my old one…but I guess it still exist….How foolish to think it doesn’t.” he didn’t know how to say it or what he was saying to the other boy. </p><p>He didn’t really want to let the other know, he wanted to be his new self. Happy and carefree and outgoing and trying his best to be open. Wooyoung helped to be all of those things, so wasn’t it fair for him to know who he use to be, he wondered. </p><p>“Sannie, you can tell me if you have stuff you need to share. I really think its important to know if you have something like panic attacks. If no one knows anything we don’t know how to help you or what to do and it be really bad.” he leaned his head on San’s shoulder and threw and arm around his lower back, half hugging him. It made San’s heart flutter. Stupid, how every little thing meant something to him. </p><p>“What did that person do, the one you ran into?” he asked it quietly, like he was afraid to ask and of the answer. San felt himself stiffen up and he knew if he didn’t share now he never might. </p><p>“He…he bullied me for years. Him and his friends, they really hated me for no reason I could ever understand. It was insults and pushing around first but when I fought back it got so much worse. They started threatening to sue my family and to get me arrested for assault if I ever fight back again. They kept harassing me and everyone just turned the other way because they were glad it wasn’t them. Even the few people I thought were my friends, they just turned away, didn’t talk to me anymore.”</p><p>He felt his face was wet again and Young-ah was looking at him now and leaning closer touching his face with his fingers, catching the tears. </p><p>“I’m so sorry that happened to you. You know that you could have told me, you always can tell me stuff.” he tried to look at San’s eyes but he didn’t really want to look up at that moment. He said instead: </p><p>“I didn’t think you would understand, considering how popular you always been. I thought I better not make myself vulnerable because there are so many bullies among the trainees too. I seen them acting just like my bullies use to. You remember when I got into trouble, right at the start when we first met…it was because I yelled at that one guy…he was bullying a younger trainee and I just couldn’t stand there and do nothing. Something in me just had enough and today I felt like that kid….Who couldn’t do anything again….Because I just got pushed aside by the person who made my life hell for years. I felt like dying.”</p><p>Wooyoung held on tighter and San heard him whimper and looked up to see the other boy was crying too. San felt so many things in that moment. Foremost of them was love. Love for his Wooyoung. </p><p>“Don’t cry, baby. It’s ok, I be ok. I just need a little time and I be just fine soon.” San reached his arms out and held Young-ah to his chest feeling the other breathing hard and holding on. </p><p>Wooyoung looked up at him and they were very close and San reach out to wipe the tears from his face and he asked: “Did you think I was like them? The people who hurt you.” he looked heartbroken asking it and San wanted to reassure him straight away but he didn’t want to lie: “At first, I did just a little bit fear that you could be someone like that. I didn’t know you that well yet and you kept acting so spoiled around Yeosang and I thought that maybe….But then I saw all the other sides of you and realized that you are nothing like that. You are a very caring person and you never want to see others suffer.” </p><p>“I didn’t think we had bullies among our trainees, I thought that tensions run high sure but people here be mature enough not to act that way…but I guess it doesn’t matter where one is…it can happen anywhere.” he hung his head and San hugged him some more because he could. </p><p>“I didn’t want you to see me as someone lonely and broken. I wanted you to just keep seeing all the good things, the things you always bring out in me. I was afraid to tell you but I maybe should have tried sooner….Maybe I be better by now if I did…I don’t know… trusting someone could have helped.” </p><p>Wooyoung got upright again from their hug that kept leaning into a cuddling embrace. He wiped at his face and looked all serious.</p><p>“I would never think less of you for any of that. None of that was your fault. You can tell me anytime you feel like something makes you uncomfortable or reminds you of that time. Or you can tell me more about what you experienced if that helps you. I’ll listen, I’ll help any way I can. I’m your friend. I won’t abandon you, not ever.” </p><p>He said it with all his sincerity and it felt like one of them moments, the ones that turn your relationship around, one of them moments that matter and stay with you. </p><p>San tried not to cry and ruin it with ugly hiccuping sobs which was hard to do because he felt like letting it all out, every feeling his been holding in for way too long. Instead he swore to, in his head, to never let go of Young-ah, always keep fighting for him and along side him. Maybe one day he be brave enough to even tell that to the other. </p><p>For now all he said was: “Thank you Young-ah. Same.” </p><p>And Wooyoung laughed and smacked his arm lightly leaning on him and making the other feel hopeful.</p><p>‘’’</p>
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